


Bedroom Tricks

by breathtaken



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Canon Era, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 11:16:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3894349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathtaken/pseuds/breathtaken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>At least she doesn’t pretend her position in the palace – and in Louis’ bed – is anything other than what it is.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Anne never tells her it hurts – her dignity, at least, if not her heart. Milady would tell her it’s to be expected, as if her father the King would ever have humiliated her mother in such a fashion, or her brother his queen.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>It makes her feel a little better, to take Milady to her bed as well. In a petty, mean fashion, unbecoming of a queen, of course. But still.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedroom Tricks

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the span of 2x02 to 2x06.

The first time, Milady looks up from between Anne’s legs and says with genuine surprise, “You know what this is.

“Noble ladies often don’t,” she explains, as Anne tries to swallow down her immediate, brittle terror and not think of bare walls and the heavy weight of a Musketeer’s body, “and I know for a fact you didn’t learn this from your husband.”

She doesn’t _know_ _anything_ , Anne has to remind herself forcibly, though between the stirrings of blind panic and the slim fingers idly tracing her entrance it’s difficult to focus her thoughts.

Before she’s worked out what she could possibly say, Milady is smiling. “Of course, we all need to have our secrets,” she concludes, and Anne rests her hands in her own lap and surrenders to the soft slick heat that follows, refusing to wonder why that of all things should have _pleased_ this strange creature.

 

* * *

 

At least she doesn’t pretend her position in the palace – and in Louis’ bed – is anything other than what it is.

Anne never tells her it hurts – her dignity, at least, if not her heart. Milady would tell her it’s to be expected, as if her father the King would ever have humiliated her mother in such a fashion, or her brother his queen.

It makes her feel a little better, to take Milady to her bed as well. In a petty, mean fashion, unbecoming of a queen, of course. But still.

 

* * *

 

Constance tells her not to trust Milady, that she lies and cheats and that everything she does is for her own ends.

Anne is telling the truth when she say she does not, but privately it occurs to her that Constance has never had to be truly ruthless.

 

* * *

 

When Anne worms her hand beneath Milady’s pillow to find the ivory hilt of a dagger, she is shocked, and then wonders with something like resign why she was even surprised. 

By that time it’s already in her hand and drawn, and Milady smiles and does something with her fingers that Anne is fast learning makes it feel as though everything in her body skips a beat, misses a step.

These tricks of Milady’s are just that: the illusions of warmth and fulfilment, of a love that has no place in either of their lives, and Milady just keeps on smiling and bares her throat when Anne presses the flat of her blade against it, not trusting herself with either of the edges.

“Why are you armed?” she asks, the question imperious, as if she could not guess at the reasons, or rather does not deign to.

Milady’s grin – it’s bared teeth more than anything – does not waver.

“I’m not the only one.”

 

* * *

 

Slowly and infrequently, Milady starts to come to her at night and stay, though when Anne wakes at dawn she’s always vanished as though she were never there. She seems to know all the secret passages of the palace as well as anyone, and Anne decides she likes it, sleeping with another body pressed warm against hers, though she pretends it’s only for knowing that Milady cannot be with Louis when she’s with her.

She sleeps as silently as the dead, and it’s that which leaves Anne caught-off guard when one night warm fingers press against the inside of her wrist and Milady murmurs against the nape of her neck, “My real name is Anne.”

For a moment, all is still.

“I was christened Ana María,” Anne replies haughtily, deliberately letting her Spanish accent out; but even as she says the words she knows it’s too little, too late.

She expects Milady’s reply to be amused, knowing, a quip that _then neither of us are who we seem to be_ ; but when her answer finally comes it’s quiet, heavy with sorrows that she’s never before been permitted to even glimpse:

“Then we both become who we need to be.”

After everything else, it is this that makes Anne feel like crying.

The mattress stirs; the door to the passageway clicks once, and Milady is gone.

 

* * *

 

When she learns from Constance – badly concealing her own triumph – that Louis has expelled her, that she has left court for good, Anne cannot quite bring herself to be joyful.


End file.
